Of High Descent

Leslie drew a deep breath and his heart beat heavily in the agony and despair he felt. She loved this man, this contemptible wretch who had gained such ascendancy over her that she was pleading in his behalf, and trying to screen him from her father’s anger.

“Mr Leslie. Do you hear me?” she cried, taking courage now in her despair and dread lest her father should return.

“Yes,” he said coldly, “I hear you, Miss Vine; and it would be better for you to retire, and leave this man with me.”

“No, no,” she cried excitedly. “Mr Leslie! you are intruding here. This is a liberty. I desire you to go.”

“When Mr Vine comes back,” said Leslie sternly. “If I have done wrong, then no apology shall be too humble for me to speak. But till he comes I stay. I have heard too much. I may have been mad in indulging in those vain hopes, but if that is all dead there still remains too much honour and respect for the woman I knew in happier times for me to stand by and let her wrong herself by accompanying this man.”

“Mr Leslie, you are mistaken.”

“I am not.”

“Indeed – indeed!”

“Prove it then,” he cried, in stern judicial tones. “I am open to conviction. You love this man?” Louise was silent. “He was begging you to accompany him in flight.” Louise uttered a low wail. “Hah!” ejaculated Leslie, “I am right.”

“No, no; it is all a misapprehension,” cried Louise excitedly. “Mr Leslie, this – ”

“Hold your tongue,” whispered Harry hoarsely, and she moaned as she writhed in spirit.

“There are reasons why my father should not know of this visit.”

“So I suppose,” said Leslie sternly; “and you ask me to be a partner by giving way to a second blow to that true-hearted, trusting man. Louise Vine, is it you who are speaking, or has this man put these cruelly base words in your mouth?”

“What can I say? What can I do?” wailed Louise, wringing her hands, as with every sense on the strain she listened for her father’s step.

Harry, who now that the first shock had passed was rapidly growing more calm and calculating, bent down over his sister, and whispered to her again in French to go quickly, and get her hat and mantle.

“He will not dare to stop us,” he said.

Louise drew a long breath full of pain, for it seemed to be the only way to save her brother. She must go; and, taking a step or two she made for the door.

“No,” said Leslie calmly, “it is better that you should stay, Miss Vine.”

Harry was at her side in a moment.

“Never mind your hat,” he whispered in French; “we must go at once.”

“Stand back, sir!” cried Leslie, springing to the door. “Your every act shows you to be a base scoundrel. You may not understand my words, but you can understand my action. I am here by this door to keep it till Mr Vine returns. For the lady’s sake, let there be no violence.”

“Mr Leslie, let us pass!” cried Louise imperiously, but he paid no heed to her, continuing to address his supposed rival in calm, judicial tones, which did not express the wild rage seething in his heart.

“I say once more, sir, let there be no violence – for your own sake – for hers.”

Harry continued to advance, with Louise’s hand in his, till Leslie had pressed close to the door.

“Once more I warn you,” said Leslie, “for I swear by Heaven you shall not pass while I can lift a hand.”

At that moment, in the obscurity, Louise felt her hand dropped, and she reeled to the side of the room, as now, with a fierce, harsh sound, Harry sprang at Leslie’s throat, pushed him back against the door in his sudden onslaught, and then wrenched him away.

“Quick, Louise!” he cried in French. “The door!”

Louise recovered herself and darted to the door, the handle rattling in her grasp. But she did not open it. She stood as if paralysed, her eyes staring and lips parted, gazing wildly at the two dimly-seen shadows which moved here and there across the casement frames in a curiously weird manner, to the accompaniment of harsh, panting sounds, the dull tramping of feet, heavy breathing, and the quick, sharp ejaculations of angry men.

Then a fresh chill of horror shot through her, as there was a momentary cessation of the sounds, and Leslie panted,

“Hah! then you give in, sir!” The apparent resignation of his adversary had thrown him off his guard, and the next moment Harry had sprung at him, and with his whole weight borne him backwards, so that he fell with his head upon the bare patch of the hearthstone.

There was the sound of a terrible blow, a faint rustling, and then, as Louise stood there like one in a nightmare, she was roused to action by her brother’s words.

“Quick!” he whispered, in a hoarse, panting way. “Your hat and mantle. Not a moment to lose!”

The nightmare-like sensation was at an end, but it was still all like being in a dream to Louise, as, forced against her own will by the effort of one more potent, she ran up to her own room, and catching up a bonnet and a loose cloak, she ran down again.

“You have killed him,” she whispered.

“Pish! stunned. Quick, or I shall be caught.”

He seized her wrist, and hurried her out of the front door just as Liza went in at the back, after a long whispered quarrel with her mother, who was steadily plodding down towards the town as brother and sister stepped out.

“What’s that? some one in front?” whispered Harry, stopping short. “Here, this way.”

“Harry!” moaned his sister, as he drew her sidewise and began to climb up the rough side of the path so as to reach the rugged land above.

“It is the only chance,” he said hastily. “Quick!”

She followed him, half climbing, half dragged, till she was up on the granite-strewn waste, across which he hurried her, reckless of the jagged masses of rock that were always cropping up in their way, and of the fact that in three places farther along, once fenced in by stones, which had since crumbled down, were, one after the other, the openings to three disused mines, each a terrible yawning chasm, with certain death by drowning for the unfortunate who was plunged into their depths.

Volume Three – Chapter Seven.

After the Great Sorrows

“No, no, no, Mr Vine – I mean no, no, no, George Vine,” sobbed Mrs Van Heldre; “I did, I know, feel bitter and full of hatred against one who could be so base as to raise his hand against my loving, forbearing husband; but that was when I was in misery and despair. Do you think that now God has blessed us by sparing his life and restoring him to us, I could be so thankless, so hard and wicked as to bear malice?”

“You are very, very good,” said Vine sadly.

“I wish I was,” said Mrs Van Heldre, with a comic look of perplexity on her pretty elderly countenance, “but I’m not, George, I’m a very curious woman.”

“You are one of the best and most amiable creatures that ever existed,” said Vine, taking her hand and kissing it.

“I try to be good-tempered and to do my best,” said the little woman with a sigh, “but I’m very weak and stupid; and I know that is the one redeeming point in my character, I can feel what a weak woman I am.”

“Thank God you are what you are,” said Vine reverently. “If I had had such a wife spared to me all these years, that terrible catastrophe would not have occurred.”

“And you, George Vine, thank God, too, for sparing to you the best and most loving daughter that ever lived. Now, now, now, don’t look like that. I wanted to tell you how fond and patient John always has been with me, and Maddy too, when I have said and done weak and silly things. For I do, you know, sometimes. Ah, it’s no use for you to shake your head, and pretend you never noticed it. You must.”

“I hope you will never change,” said Vine with a sad smile.

“Ah, that’s better,” cried Mrs Van Heldre. “I’m glad to see you smile again, for Louie’s sake, for our sake; and now, once for all, never come into our house again, my dear old friend and brother, looking constrained. John has had long, long talks with me and Maddy.”

“Yes,” cried Vine excitedly. “What did he say?”

Mrs Van Heldre took his hand and held it.

“He said,” she whispered slowly, “that it grieved and pained him to see you come to his bedside looking as if you felt that we blamed you for what has passed. He said you had far more cause to blame him.”

“No, no,” said Vine hastily. “I do not blame him. It was fate – it was fate.”

“It wasn’t anything of the kind,” said Mrs Van Heldre sharply; “it was that stupid, obstinate, bigoted, wrong-headed old fellow Crampton.”

“Who felt that he owed a duty to his master, and did that duty.”

“Oh!” sighed the little woman with a look of perplexity in her puckered-up forehead, “I told you that I was a very stupid woman. I wanted to make you more cheerful and contented, and see what I have done!”

“How can I be cheerful and contented, my good little woman?” said Vine sadly. “There, there! I shall be glad when a couple of years have gone.”

“Why?” said Mrs Van Heldre sharply.

“Because I shall either be better able to bear my burden or be quite at rest.”

“George Vine!” exclaimed Mrs Van Heldre reproachfully. “Is that you speaking? Louise – remember Louise.”

“Ah, yes,” he said sadly, but sat gazing dreamily before him. “Louise. If it had not been for her – ”

He did not finish his sentence.

“Come, my dear. John will be expecting you for a long chat. Try and be more hopeful, and don’t go up to him looking like that. Doctor Knatchbull said we were to make him as cheerful as we could, and to keep him from thinking about the past. He did say, too, that we were not to let you see him much. There – ”

Poor little Mrs Van Heldre looked more perplexed than ever, and now burst into tears. “He said that? The doctor said that?”

“Yes; but did you ever hear such a silly woman in your life? To go and blurt out such a thing as that to you!”

“He was quite right – quite right,” said Vine hastily; “and I’ll be very careful not to say or do anything to depress him. Poor John! Do you think he is awake now?”

“No,” said Mrs Van Heldre, wiping her eyes. “Maddy is with him, and she will come down directly he wakes.”

At that moment there was a ring, and on the door being opened the servant announced Luke Vine.

“Hallo!” he said, coming in after his usual unceremonious fashion. “How is he?”

“Very, very much better, Luke Vine,” said Mrs Van Heldre. “George is going up to see him as soon as he wakes.”

“George? My brother George! Oh, you’re there, are you? How are you, George? How’s the girl?”

“Sit down, Luke Vine.”

“No, thank you, ma’am. Sit too much as it is. Don’t get enough exercise.”

“You shall go up and see John, as soon as he wakes.”

“No, thankye. What’s the use? I couldn’t do him any good. One’s getting old now. No time to spare. Pity to waste what’s left.”

“Well, I’m sure,” said Mrs Van Heldre, bridling. “Of all men to talk like that, you ought to be the last. I’ll go up and see whether he is awake.”

“Poor little woman,” said Uncle Luke, as she left the room. “Always puts me in mind, George, of a pink and white bantam hen.”

“As good a little woman as ever breathed, Luke.”

“Yes, of course; but it’s comic to see her ruffle up her feathers and go off in a huff. How’s Lou?”

“Not very well, Luke. Poor girl, she frets. I shall have to take her away.”

“Rubbish! She’ll be all right directly. Women have no brains.”

George Vine looked up at him with an air of mild reproof.

“All tears and doldrums one day; high jinks and coquetry the next. Marry, and forget all about you in a week.”

“Luke, my dear brother, you do not mean this.”

“Don’t soap, George. I hate to be called my dear brother. Now, do I look like a dear brother?”

“I shall never forget your goodness to us over our terrible trouble.”

“Will you be quiet? Hang it all, George! don’t be such an idiot. Let the past be. The poor foolish boy is dead; let him rest. Don’t be for ever digging up the old sorrow, to brood over it and try to hatch fresh. The eggs may not be addled, and you might be successful. Plenty of trouble without making more.”

“I do not wish to make more, Luke; but you hurt me when you speak so lightly of Louise.”

“A jade! I hate her.”

“No, you do not.”

“Yes, I do. Here’s Duncan Leslie, as good a fellow as ever stepped, who has stuck to her through thick and thin, in spite of my lady’s powder, and fan, and her insults.”

“Marguerite has been very sharp and spiteful to Mr Leslie,” said George Vine sadly.

“She’s mad. Well, he wants to marry the girl, and she has pitched him over.”

“Has Louise refused him?”

“He doesn’t say so; but I saw him, and that’s enough. Of course I know that at present – et cetera, et cetera: but the girl wants a husband: all girls do. There was one for her, and she is playing stand off with him. Just like woman. He! he! he! he!” He uttered a sneering laugh. “Going to marry Madge’s French count, I suppose – Monsieur le Comte de Mythville. There, I can’t help it, George, old lad; it makes me wild. Shake hands, old chap. Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings; but between ourselves, though I’ve never shown it to a soul, I was rather hit upon the idea of Leslie marrying Louise.”

“I had thought it possible,” said George Vine, with a sigh.

“Her fault. Hang it all, George, be a man, and bestir yourself.”

“I am trying, brother Luke.”

“That’s right, lad; and for goodness’ sake put down your foot and keep Margaret in her place. Louie is soft now with trouble, and that wicked old woman will try to work her and mould her into what shape she pleases. You’ve had enough of Margaret.”

“I have tried to do my duty by our sister.”

“You’ve done more, my lad. Now take care that she leaves Louie alone. You don’t want another old maid of her pattern in the family.”

“John is awake now, George Vine,” said Mrs Van Heldre, re-entering the room. “Will you go up?”

“Yes, I’ll go up,” said George Vine quietly.

“Well, aren’t I to be asked to see him?” grumbled Uncle Luke.

“Oh, what a strange man you are!” said Mrs Van Heldre; “you know I wanted you to go up.”

“No, I don’t; I know you asked me to go up. Different thing altogether.”

“I did want you to go. I felt that it would cheer up poor John.”

“Well, don’t be cross about it, woman. Ask me again.”

Mrs Van Heldre turned with a smile to George Vine, as much as to say, “Did you ever hear such an unreasonable being?”

“Rum one, aren’t I, John’s wife, eh?” said Uncle Luke grimly. “Good little woman, after all.”

“After all!” ejaculated Mrs Van Heldre, as she followed them into the room, and then stopped back. “Too many of us at once can’t be good, so I must stay down,” she added, with a sigh.

Crossing to the table where her bird’s cage was standing, she completely removed the cover, now displaying a pink and grey ball of feathers upon the perch, her action having been so gentle that the bird’s rest was not disturbed.

“Poor little prisoner!” she said gently. “There, you may wake up to-morrow morning and pipe and sing in the bright sunshine, for we can bear it now – thank God! we can bear it now.”

Volume Three – Chapter Eight.

The Discovery

Madelaine rose as the brothers entered the room, and before coming to the bed, where Van Heldre lay rapidly mending now, George Vine took the girl’s hands, looked down in her pale face, which sorrow seemed to have refined, and bent down and kissed her.

“How are you, Maddy?” said Luke Vine, gruffly; and he was going on to the bed, but Madelaine laid her hand upon his shoulder, leant towards him, and kissed him.

“Hah! yes, forgot,” he said, brushing her forehead roughly with his grey beard; and then, yielding to a sudden impulse, kissing the girl tenderly. “How I do hate girls!” he muttered to himself, as he went straight to the window and stood there for a few moments.

“Poor lad!” he said to himself. “Yes, hopeless, or a girl like that would have redeemed him.”

He turned back from the window.

“Room too hot and stuffy,” he said. “Well, how are you, John?”

“Getting well fast,” replied Van Heldre, shaking hands. “Splendid fish that was you sent me to-day; delicious.”

“Humph! all very fine! Shilling or fifteen-pence out of pocket,” grumbled Uncle Luke.

“Get out!” said Van Heldre, after a keen look at George Vine. “Poll Perrow wouldn’t have given you more than ninepence for a fish like that. It’s wholesale, Luke, wholesale.”

“Ah! you may grin and wink at George,” grumbled Uncle Luke, “but times are getting hard.”

“They are, old fellow, and we shall be having you in the workhouse, if we can’t manage to get you to the Victoria Park place.”

“Here, come away, George,” snarled Uncle Luke. “He’s better. Beginning to sneer. Temper’s getting very bad now, I suppose, my dear?” he added to Madelaine.

“Terrible. Leads me a dreadful life, Uncle Luke,” she said, putting her arm round Van Heldre’s neck to lay her cheek against his brow for a moment or two before turning to leave the room.

“Cant and carny,” said Uncle Luke. “Don’t you believe her, John Van; she’ll be coming to you for money to-morrow – bless her,” he added sotto voce; then aloud, “What now?”

For Madelaine had gone behind his chair, and placed her hands upon his shoulders.

“It’s all waste of breath, Uncle Luke,” she said gently. “We found you out a long time ago, Louise and I.”

“What do you mean?”

“All this pretended cynicism. It’s a mere disguise.”

“An ass in the lion’s skin, eh?”

“No, Uncle Luke,” she whispered, with her lips close to his ear, so that the others should not catch the words, “that is the wrong way, sir. Reverse the fable.”

“What do you mean, hussy?”

“The dear old lion in the ass’s skin,” she whispered; “and whenever you try to bray it is always a good honest roar.”

“Well, of all – ”

He did not finish, for Madelaine had hurried from the room, but a grim smile came over his cynical countenance, and he rubbed his hands softly as if he was pleased. Then, drawing his chair nearer to the bed, he joined in the conversation at rare intervals, the subjects chosen being all as foreign as possible from the past troubles, till Mrs Van Heldre came softly into the room.

“I am Doctor Knatchbull’s deputy,” she said; “and my orders are not to let John excite himself.”

“All nonsense, my dear,” said Van Heldre.

“She is quite right, John,” said George Vine, rising.

“Quite right,” said Uncle Luke, following his brother’s example. “Keep him quiet. Make haste and get well. Good-night. Come, George.”

He was at the door by the time he had finished his speech, and without pausing to shake hands began to descend.

Madelaine came out of the drawing-room as the old man reached the hail.

“What do you think of him?” she said eagerly.

“Going backwards – dying fast,” he said shortly. “Oh!”

“Don’t be a little goose,” he cried, catching her in his arms as she reeled. “We all are; especially people over fifty. Bonny little nurse. You’ve done wonders. Good-night, my dear; God bless you!”

She returned his loving fatherly kiss, given hastily, as if he were ashamed of his weakness, and then he strode out into the dark night.

“Poor Uncle Luke!” she said softly. “I was right. He must have had some shock to change his life like this. Good-night, dear Mr Vine. My dearest love to Louie.”

“Good-night, my darling,” he whispered huskily, and the next minute he was walking slowly away beside his brother in the direction of the turning up to the granite house.

“Good-night, Luke,” said George Vine. “It is of no use to say come up.”

“Yes, it is,” said Uncle Luke snappishly. “I want to see Louie, and have a decent cup of tea.”

“I am very glad,” said his brother warmly. “Hah! that’s right. Come more often, Luke. We are getting old men now, and it’s pleasant to talk of the days when we were boys.”

“And be driven from the place by Madge with her pounce-box and her civet-cat airs. You kick her out, and I’ll come often.”

“Poor Marguerite!”

“There you go; encouraging the silly French notions. Why can’t you call her Margaret, like a British Christian?”

“Let her finish her span in peace, brother,” said George Vine, whose visit to his old friend seemed to have brightened him, and made voice and step elastic. “We are crotchety and strange too, I with my mollusc hobby, you with your fishing.”

“If you want to quarrel, I’m not coming up.”

“Yes you are, Luke. There, come often, and let poor Margaret say what she likes. We shall have done our duty by her, so that will be enough for us.”

“Hang duty! I’m getting sick of duty. No matter what one does, or how one tries to live in peace and be left alone, there is always duty flying in one’s face.”

“Confession of failure, Luke,” said his brother, taking his arm. “You had given up ordinary social life, invested your property, sent your plate to your banker’s, and settled down to the life of the humblest cottager, to, as you say, escape the troubles of every-day life.”

“Yes, and I’ve escaped ’em – roguish tradespeople, household anxieties, worries out of number.”

“In other words,” said Vine, smiling, “done everything you could to avoid doing your duty, and for result you have found that trouble comes to your cottage in some form or another as frequently as it does to my big house.”

Uncle Luke stopped short, and gave his stick a thump on the path.

“I have done, Luke,” said Vine quietly. “Come along; Louise will think we are very long.”

“Louise will be very glad to have had an hour or two to herself without you pottering about her. Hah! what idiots we men are, fancying that the women are looking out for us from our point of view when they are looking out from theirs for fear of being surprised, and – ”

“Here we are, Luke. Come in, my clear boy.”

Uncle Luke grunted.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, “it’s getting late. Perhaps I had better not come in now.”

“The tea will be waiting,” said his brother, holding his arm lightly as he rang.

“Horribly dark for my walk back afterwards,” grumbled Uncle Luke. “Really dangerous place all along there by the cliff. No business to be out at night. Ought to be at home.”

“Tea ready, Liza?” said George Vine, as the door was opened, and the pleasant glow from the hall shone upon them in a way that, in spite of his assumed cynicism, looked tempting and attractive to Uncle Luke.

“Miss Louise hasn’t rung for the urn yet, sir.”

“Hah! that will do. Give me your hat, Luke.”

“Bah! nonsense! Think I can’t hang up my own hat now.”

George Vine smiled, and he shook his head at his brother with a good-humoured smile as he let him follow his own bent.

“That’s right. Come along. Louie dear, I’ve brought Uncle Luke up to tea. All dark? Liza, bring the lamp.”

Liza had passed through the baize-covered door which separated the domestic offices from the rest of the house, and did not hear the order.

“Louie! Louie dear!”

“Oh! I don’t mind the dark,” said Uncle Luke. “Here, why don’t the girl let in some air these hot nights?” he continued, as he crossed the room towards the big embayment, with its stained glass heraldic device.

Crack! crackle!

“Hullo here! broken glass under one’s feet,” said Luke Vine, with a chuckle. “This comes of having plenty of servants to keep your place clean.”

“Glass?”

“Yes, glass. Can’t you hear it?” snarled Uncle Luke, who, as he found his brother resume his old demeanour, relapsed into his own. “There! glass – glass – glass crunching into your Turkey carpet.”

As he spoke he gave his foot a stamp, with the result that at each movement there was a sharp crackling sound.

“It’s very strange. Louise!”

“Oh!”

A low, piteous moan.

“What’s that?” cried Uncle Luke sharply.

George Vine stood in the darkness paralysed with dread. Some fresh trouble had befallen his house – some new horror assailed him; and his hand wandered vaguely about in search of support as a terrible feeling of sickness came over him, and he muttered hoarsely, “Louise! my child! my child!”

Luke Vine was alarmed, but he did not lose his presence of mind.

“Margaret – a fit,” he said to himself, as, turning quickly, his foot kicked against another portion of the lamp-globe, which tinkled loudly as it fell to pieces.